


Four Times

by orphan_account



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Akashi longing after his senpai but with reverence, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Blow Job, M/M, Nijimura finally coming to his goddamn senses, Sexual Content, Teen Angst, Teiko, nijiaka - Freeform, partial future!fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-06
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-02-11 23:52:54
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2087736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Akashi stares at the sun, and one time he burns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Four Times

**1\. Mother**

 

Akashi is thirteen years old and already keenly aware of beauty when he joins Teiko middle school’s famous basketball club.

He was raised to appreciate aesthetics in all its forms, after all. At the age of ten a small battalion of art historians hired by his father resolutely marched him through the entire Louvre. He’ll always remember that, because it was right after his mother died.

He learned to associate beauty with pain that summer.

Nijimura is a thing of beauty too, but he’s a living creature, not a painting on the wall or a marble sculpture. He _moves_ , and it’s raw and powerful in a way that makes Akashi forget to breathe as he watches from the sidelines with the other first string bench players, hoping that no one else notices the way his hands clench around his knees.

When Nijimura makes a fast break and drives a wedge through the opposing team’s defense, Akashi sees pure artistry but it doesn’t remind him of hospital beds or IV drips, doctors walking forward in that special slow way they have when there’s bad news.

Akashi thinks about hiring a painter to immortalize Nijimura’s form, imagines taking down the unworthy Mona Lisa and erecting a picture of his captain in its place. But, witnessing Nijimura perform a perfect lay-up, he decides that any captured likeness would be a poor substitute for the real thing.

“That was very impressive, Nijimura-san,” he manages when the older boy subs out and plops onto the bench beside him.

Nijimura gives him a half-scowl half-smirk, making his upper lip stick out humorously. “Thanks, but that’s ‘senpai’ to you.” He raises a hand and flicks Akashi’s forehead with his middle finger.

“Senpai,” Akashi amends agreeably, trying to memorize the feel of that first touch.

No one’s ever touched him so casually before, aside from his mother.

 

 

 

**2\. Brother**

 

Yukimaru is more skittish than usual this morning, so Akashi gives her a few rounds of light cantering on the gentle slope away from the competition arena set up in Yoyogi Park. She settles down nicely within a few minutes, and he’s bringing her back down to a trot when a loud, high-pitched squeal startles them both.

“Onii-chan, look! It’s a prince on a unicoooooorn!”

Akashi immediately reins in his horse and looks down to see a small black-haired child running full-speed towards them, pink sneakers flashing against the bright green grass. Yukimaru has never spent much time with children, so he feels a flash of trepidation. But before the girl reaches them, she trips and falls flat on the ground. Akashi is trying to decide whether or not he should dismount to help her when he hears a familiar voice.

“Chiyo! Are you hurt?”

It is none other than his captain who runs up to the girl, with a small boy trailing behind. Akashi is nearly unseated by his shock at seeing the older boy outside of the context of Teiko.

“I’m so sorry about that,” Nijimura says, dusting off the girl’s yellow jacket. “She slipped out of my view for two seconds and-” He looks up, sees who he’s talking to with a startled flash of recognition. “Akashi?!”

“Good morning, Nijimura-senpai,” Akashi returns with less surprise than he feels. “Are you members of the Tokyo Riding Club too?” he inquires politely, despite knowing full well that the Nijimuras are not. Akashi’s family have been upper echelon members for decades, though he still prefers to train privately at the home estate.

Nijimura helps his sister to her feet gently. “Uh, no, we’re not. We were just in the area, and my sister loves horses so when she saw them from outside the park, she ran in before I could stop her. Isn’t that right, squirt?” He places a firm hand on each of his sibling’s heads. “Chiyo, Nobu, where are your manners? Say hello to Akashi.”

“Nice to meet you, Akashi-san!” they chirp in tandem.

Akashi guesses the boy to be about eight, and the girl to be five. He doesn’t have much experience with children either, but inclines his head with customary dignity. “I am honored to meet you both.”

“Akashi-san, are you a prince?” asks Chiyo, wide-eyed and innocent.

Nijimura makes a scoffing noise, which he tries unsuccessfully to pass off as a cough. “Princes aren’t the only people who ride horses, you little twerp!”

“Your brother is right, Chiyo-chan.” Akashi dismounts with fluid grace, the very picture of aristocratic elegance. “But Yukimaru here really is a unicorn. She only lets people pet her if they are quiet and gentle, though. Would you like to?”  

“Can I pet her also?” asks Nobu, quieter than his sister but no less interested.

“You may. Step forward slowly and let her sniff you first.”

Nijimura watches with crossed arms and a strange expression as his siblings gingerly touch Yukimaru’s velvety nose under Akashi’s careful eye. “I didn’t know you rode,” he says, his gaze taking in the plaid wool jacket and stiff trousers, shiny riding boots which look impossibly spotless against the dewy, muddy field. “You look… different.”

Akashi glances up at him. “Beg pardon?”

“I’ve never seen you in anything other than your school uniform, your practice clothes, or your basketball jersey, I mean.”

“Ah.” Akashi reaches up and adjusts his riding helmet. “I suppose that’s true. But there’s no reason for you to have seen me in anything else, is there?” _Because we’re not friends, just senpai and kouhai, players who just happen to be on the same team_ , is the unspoken sentiment between them.

“Pretty pretty unicorn,” coos Chiyo, her little hands happily patting Yukimaru’s face. The horse gently nudges back, clearly delighted by the attention.

“Are you competing today, Akashi?” asks Nijimura.

“Yes, we will be participating in the dressage and jumping meets. In fact-” the sound of a gong resounds around them, “- there is my cue to line up now. I’m afraid I must take my leave.”

“Ah, of course. Come on squirts, they’ve got to go.” He collects his brother and sister.

Akashi places a foot in the stirrup and swings back onto the saddle with the same refinement as his dismount. “Will you stay and watch me ride, Nijimura-senpai?” he asks, crop in hand.

Nijimura looks down at his watch. “Well, we have to be back at the hospital soon…”

Chiyo and Nobu tug both sides of his shirt. “Please, onii-chan, let’s stay and watch Akashi-san!”

To everyone’s surprise, he bursts out laughing, and the sound is rich and cheerful. “You guys are going to drive Mom and Dad crazy while they wait for us, you know that? But alright, since we’re already here, I guess we should stay and watch.” He grins up at Akashi. “You better win, though.”

Akashi touches gloved fingers to his helmet and tips his head in salute. “Of course, senpai.”

He and Yukimaru perform splendidly that day, but neither of the shiny gold medals mean as much to him as Nijimura’s cheering face in the crowd as Yukimaru soars over each obstacle in their path. When Akashi rides up to them afterwards and hands a medal to Chiyo and Nobu each, he swears he can see something strangely like pride glinting in Nijimura’s eyes.

“You really do look like a prince, you know,” his captain tells him.  

Akashi has to grip Yukimaru’s braided mane tight to keep himself from sliding off the saddle.  

 

 

**3\. Father**

 

“This is the last time, ok?” Nijimura looks down at him with a twisted half-smile. “I’ve  graduated now, so enjoy it while you still can.”

Akashi nods, closes his eyes while leaning forward, and waits for his touch amidst the air-conditioned coolness of the empty basketball gym.

It comes almost immediately, and the flick is as painful as ever. Akashi rubs the pink spot on his forehead and looks up at him. “I can’t honestly say I’ll miss these, senpai.”

Nijimura gives him a wolfish grin, looking handsome in formal dress attire. It’s a step up from the usual school uniform. Akashi has spent half his life wearing fine Western suits, double-breasted Savile Row jackets flown straight from London when he goes riding, or exquisitely stitched Yves Saint-Laurent pieces for the inevitable academic awards ceremonies. Nijimura’s best suit is in the kiddie leagues by comparison, but Akashi knows it was never just a matter of wealth between them anyways, and he frowns at the thought of the ocean which would soon physically divide them.

“I’d stay if I could,” says Nijimura, noticing the change in his expression. “It’s just, my dad-”

“I know,” Akashi cuts in, though he doesn’t, not really. He wonders what it would be like to have a father who loves him, rather than his accomplishments or potential. He understood long ago that he is nothing more and nothing less than the sum total of all his father’s expectations. But what he says is, “I understand.”

“Heh, I don’t know about that. But the important thing is that you’ve already led them to victory, and you can do it again. That’s all that matters.” Nijimura’s hand comes down over his left shoulder. “You’re a better captain than I was, anyway.”

Akashi cocks his head slightly to the side, catching the undertone of bitterness in his voice. Somehow in the two years they’ve known each other, the natural order of things had been reversed.

A lesser boy would not have borne it, but Nijimura had bowed out with grace and endured more bench time during his final year at Teiko than any player of his caliber at another school. It was yet another sacrifice on his part, which he shouldered without complaint. He had chosen family, duty, and honor over glory.

 _It was his choice_ , Akashi had reminded himself viciously each time he could have subbed Nijimura into a match but didn’t. He would’ve felt justified in walking over almost anyone else to achieve his objectives, but he hadn’t expected it would be Nijimura.  

“Was it worth it?” he asks simply.

Nijimura thrusts his hands deep into his pockets, the outline of his fists bulging through the fabric of his pleated trousers. “Let me tell you something, Akashi. I was actually going to quit basketball altogether. Yeah, the year you joined the club. I was spending so much time in games and practices that I could have used to work a part-time job and help out at home.”

Akashi stares at him in surprise.

“But you know what?” Nijimura continues, raising his head to look up at the gym rafters. “My dad told me not to quit, even though he was staying at the hospital full-time and only my mom was working. He told me something which makes me as happy as basketball shouldn’t be easily sacrificed. And I knew he was right, although I still did my best to shoulder the burdens I could.”  

“That’s why you were always at practice so early even after I became captain,” says Akashi in sudden understanding. “You were taking Nobu and Chiyo to school in the mornings.”

“Yeah. So if you’re asking me if it was worth it to give up my captainship so I could be available to my family when necessary, the answer is yes. If you’re asking me if it’s worth it to move across the world to be with my dad during his treatment, the answer is definitely yes. You’re the smartest guy I know, Akashi, but you don’t know everything.”

Akashi can’t remember the last time he cried, but when he raises his hand to touch his cheek, there it is: the glimmering wet evidence of tears. It’s not much, but its presence is indisputable. Nijimura sees too and his cheeks flush pink, but he tactfully turns his body to the side.

“I’m really going to miss you, Nijimura-senpai,” Akashi says, moving closer to him.

Nijimura stands his ground, though his eyes take on a wary glint.

Akashi doesn’t stop until his face is three inches from Nijimura’s chest. He tilts his head up, knowing that the weak sunlight will emphasize the tear trails on his cheeks. “May I kiss you goodbye?”

With eyes so wide that his brows are in danger of disappearing into his hairline, Nijimura stutters out, “A-Akashi! You know I like girls, right? I mean, you’re great and all, but-”

“I know.” Akashi gives him a smile, somehow managing to look both shy and sly at once. “Maybe I don’t know everything, as you say, but I knew that.” He reaches up on tiptoe and places his lips chastely, reverently, on Nijimura’s cheek. The first hints of facial hair prick his lips as he draws away.

He’ll remember the look on Nijimura’s face forever, caught between confusion and regret.

The next day Nijimura boards a plane which takes him to the other side of a vast ocean and Akashi wraps his number 4 captain’s jersey around his hand while quietly, furiously stroking himself in the cool darkness of his room.  

 

 

 

 

**4\. Lover**

 

He still speaks the same way, Akashi thinks. Nijimura has the voice of a captain still- every sentence conveying one part admonition, one part challenge, and one part warmth, though the words no longer had anything to do with basketball.

 _Precise Excision of Brain Tumors Using Latest Nanotechnology_ is the name of the keynote speech, but looking around the auditorium, Akashi can tell he’s not the only person less focused on the topic at hand and more on the speaker himself. The women in particular perk up the way they always do with an attractive man in sight.

It isn’t hard to understand why- Nijimura at 36 is far handsomer than he was at 16, and from his VIP seat to the front left of the stage Akashi has ample opportunity to observe the changes which twenty years have wrought upon his former senpai.

He is taller now, and age has lengthened his face and defined it, removing all traces of a prepubescent stage. He was never as classically handsome as Kise or exotic as Aomine, overwhelming masculine like Murasakibara or appealingly erudite like Midorima, but Nijimura possessed a sort of jagged magnetism which the years have only amplified.

Nijimura ends his speech to loud and sustained applause, and after a few minutes the audience members begin to spill out into the lobby for cocktails and hor d'oeuvres. Akashi stands and intercepts him as he comes down from the stage.

“That was a brilliant presentation, Nijimura-senpai. Or should I call you Doctor, now?”

Nijimura physically stumbles over the last step but rights himself immediately. “ _Akashi_?” It sounds less like a question and more like a shocked plea.  

He gives the taller man a small smile. “Yes, it’s me.”

Nijimura fixes him with a keen look. This, too, has not changed. But up close Akashi notices that he has an edge to him, wild and feral despite the polished suit and tie (infinitely nicer than the one he’d worn to his Teiko graduation). The effect was strangely at odds with his endearing upper lip, as pouty as ever.

“Akashi, I… It’s been a very long time, hasn’t it?” He swallows hard, Adam’s apple moving up and down.

“It has,” Akashi agrees, his head feeling light.  

“I wasn’t aware you attended medical conferences.” Nijimura’s hands find their way into his  pockets as they always did when he was bored, or nervous.

“It’s my first attendance. The Akashi Corporation is one of the principal sponsors, so I’m here representing the company. Usually it’s my father who comes.” He pauses for just a second. “He passed away earlier this year, you know. My father.”

“Ah, yes I remember seeing that on the news. I was sorry to hear it.”

And Akashi knows that he is, despite the lost space between them. But there’s always time to talk about tragedy later, and right now he wants something else. “I’d like to take you to dinner, Nijimura-senpai. Will you come with me, please?”

For the first time in twenty years he witnesses that half-scowl, half-smirk again. “Thank you, I would like that very much. But only if you stop calling me ‘senpai’”.

“Shuuzou,” Akashi amends agreeably, memorizing the feel of it on his tongue.  

 

* * *

 

“You know, I still remember the last time we spoke. I think about it, probably more often than I should,” Nijimura says over post-dinner coffee and cognac at the elegant hotel restaurant Akashi had taken them to.  

Ah. They had spent all of dinner exchanging news about their former teammates and reminiscing over their Teiko days, but that one particular memory had remained untouched till now. “Do you still like girls, Shuuzou?” he asks, keeping the tone neutral. He can see the other man turning the idea over in his head.

“I do,” Nijimura replies finally. “But I think… I believe maybe I like you too. God, I’m not even sure-- I mean, I got married. I have a daughter. But seeing you again now, after all this time-”

“You’re married?” Akashi feels his initial happiness take a plunge.

“Divorced, now. Are you?”

“No, never.” There had been men and women both whose company he enjoyed very much, and even a few with whom he’d even considered marriage, but in the end he’d gently let them all go for various reasons. Since his father died he had been thinking more and more about adoption.

They share a quiet look over the tops of their cognac tumblers. 

“What are you thinking now, Shuuzou?”

“I’m thinking that perhaps… “ Nijimura sets down his drink with a deliberate clink. “I should finally return your kiss after all these years. If you still want it, that is.”

Akashi lets out a quiet breath. “Yes. But not just that. I want _everything_.”

Nijimura gives him another long look. Then he nods once, and Akashi pays the check. They get up from the table in tandem and ride the elevator up to his hotel suite.

 

* * *

 

Now it is Nijimura’s turn to place soft kisses on his face, slowly and gently until Akashi tugs at his tie with impatience.

With infinite care he undresses Akashi and places each article of clothing neatly on the plush armchair beside the bed. Then Nijimura sits on the edge of the king sized mattress, still fully dressed, and takes his time looking at the naked smaller man. Akashi’s perfectly balanced musculature is apparent even by the dim light of the lamp.

“Are you going to touch me, Shuuzou, or just look?”

Nijimura pulls his gaze up from his rippled abdominals to his face. “Don’t rush me, Akashi. You don’t know how you look to me right now. You’re just so….” He trails off, shaking his head slightly.

“Come here.” Akashi holds his hand out.

Nijimura walks over with slow steps. “I’ve never done this before. Tell me what I should do.”

“You may do whatever you wish. I trust you. If I’m uncomfortable I will tell you, and of course that goes for yourself as well.”

Nijimura drops to his knees before Akashi, worshipful and supplicating. Like the rest of his body, Akashi’s cock is perfectly proportioned, the hair around it neat and groomed. It looks inviting enough, so Nijimura gives the head an experimental lick, and then draws back to blow softly over it. Akashi’s reaction is immediate, fingers curling and pulling at the dark head moving between his legs. Encouraged, Nijimura places his lips over the entire head and alternates between mouthing it gently and light sucking.

“Ngh yes,” whispers Akashi above him, becoming fully erect within seconds.

Nijimura brings his hands up to brace against Akashi’s hips. He licks one long stripe along the side of Akashi’s cock, and then goes back the same way with wet, sloppy kisses, earning moans and more hair-pulling. Finally he takes as much of him as he can and moves back and forth with deliberation.

When Akashi starts pressing back against him, Nijimura grasps his hips more firmly and starts bobbing faster, deeper, swiping his tongue over the veiny underside and around the head. Feeling close, Akashi moves his right hand from Nijimura’s hair to his chin, tilting up his head slightly.

“Look at me, Shuuzou,” he whispers authoritatively.  

Nijimura’s dark grey eyes meet his, and the frisson of that heated gaze causes Akashi to come apart with a deep groan, cum shooting out and splashing the bottom of Nijimura’s mouth and chin, dripping wetly onto the front of his suit in the following stillness.  

“Ah, I’m sorry about that,” Akashi pants, his hands moving down to Nijimura’s shoulders for support.

“I’m not,” replies Nijimura, his tongue flicking out obscenely. His expression takes on a wolfish, predatory look.

Akashi likes that very much, and shows it by pulling him back up to his feet.

Together they slide the ruined jacket and dress shirt from his body, revealing a smooth expanse of toned muscle under skin slightly darker than Akashi’s own. “You’re still playing basketball,” he remarks in observation, hands sliding over the broadness of the larger man’s shoulders and upper arms. He still remembers the speed and power of his plays in school, made possible by this body.

Nijimura unbuckles his belt and slides off his trousers and briefs in one swift movement. “I never really stopped, despite it all.” Then he clasps his hands on either side of Akashi’s face and kisses him deeply, the tang of cum passing from tongue to tongue. They back up onto the bed together, falling over in a messy, tangle of long limbs and eager hands moving everywhere, touching everything.   

They feel both new and familiar to one another.

Akashi produces a glass bottle of scented oil and a condom from the nightstand. He presses them into Nijimura’s hands.

“You want... me? Not you?”

“You,” Akashi breathes. “And please hurry.”

He kisses and bites Nijimura’s chest and nipples as the condom goes on, and then the oil is clumsily poured over long fingers which then find their way to his ass, hesitant at first. Akashi pushes back against them though, licking up Nijimura’s jawline at the same time, and with a mutual groan the first finger pops in.

“More,” gasps Akashi, his back arching, cock standing stiff again between their abdomens.

Two fingers then, and now Nijimura is moving them slowly and with great purpose. His own erection is screaming for attention, and he rubs it against the curves of Akashi’s ass, breathing harshly.

“You’ve waited long enough,” Akashi says, looking at him knowingly. He grinds back against his cock and his fingers. “I’m ready.”

Nijimura has to squeeze his eyes shut at the sensation. “Are you sure?” he grits out. He’s much larger than just two fingers, and it doesn’t seem possible without more preparation…

“I’m always right, Shuuzou.”

Nijimura slicks his cock generously with more oil, and then Akashi takes over, moving on top of him and lining himself up with the ease of experience. Just as he lowers himself onto the other man, he reaches down and slides three slim fingers into Nijimura’s open, gasping mouth.  

“Now you’re in me, and I’m in you,” Akashi shudders out, his entire body shaking with effort.

Nijimura is beyond words, eyes rolling backwards. His hips jerk upwards unconsciously, pushing deeper into Akashi’s body, grunting and groaning around the fingers in his mouth while his hands clutch at the sheets, the skin of his knuckles turning white as bone.

When Akashi tells him to move he _obeys_ , sending lightning sparks of electric pleasure through them both. Their bodies sync to a shared rhythm, shunting up and down faster and faster to the rapid pulsing of their hearts. One of Nijimura’s hands comes up to touch Akashi’s neglected erection with firm strokes, his pelvis continuing to pound furiously into the heat of that twitching ass.

Akashi, mostly quiet until now, gasps sharply with each thrust and each pass of Nijimura’s thumb over the sensitized head of his cock. He comes hard and fast in a searing rush that whites out his vision and short-circuits his brain. Slumping forward, his over-stimulated nerves barely even register Nijimura’s own orgasm, or the bite of teeth on the fingers still in his mouth.

Akashi rolls off of him, suddenly unbearably hot. His mind is as blank as freshly fallen snow until suddenly the thought floats into his mind- _Life doesn’t get better than this_. Slowly, he feels full consciousness trickle back.

“Was that good for you?” Nijimura asks between panting breaths, staring up at the ceiling.  

“You were incredible, Shuuzou. Are you sure you’ve never done this before?” Akashi asks teasingly, feeling the sweat cool on his arms and chest.

“You always knew how to inspire a great performance,” Nijimura replies seriously. “On and off the court.”

They are quiet for several minutes, neither feeling that there is much to be said in the aftermath of mind-blowing, life-changing sex.

“I could’ve had you back then, you know,” says Akashi finally. “If I really wanted to.”

Nijimura raises himself up on one elbow and looks at him, his eyes intensely focused. “You have me now. You have all of me, Seijuurou.”  

“I know.”

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I know there are like a million and one interpretations of Akashi, and I find them all to be fascinating, but here is my own. Or really just one of mine, because he is such an infinitely complex character. I hope I've done alright here. Nijimura is probably the most overlooked badass in the entire series (I mean COME ON, even while at Teiko his stats were higher than all of the Uncrowned Kings in high school, according to the official Character Bible!), and I want to do him justice. 
> 
> I imagine that to Akashi, Nijimura represents not just someone he can look up to in terms of their shared burden of captainship, but also the things which are missing in his own life, most notably close family relationships, so I tried to explore those themes here, particularly where it concerns fatherhood (I had Nijimura become a doctor/clinical researcher because of his father’s illness, of course). 
> 
> Ultimately, I think it comes down to Nijimura missing out on basketball, but Akashi missing out on unconditional love.
> 
> Anyways hope you enjoyed and thanks for reading! Any comments/feedback much appreciated.


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